The World as Will and Idea Volume I Part 12

-- 61. It may be remembered from the Second Book that in the whole of nature, at all the grades of the objectification of will, there was a necessary and constant conflict between the individuals of all species; and in this way was expressed the inner contradiction of the will to live with itself. At the highest grade of the objectification, this phenomenon, like all others, will exhibit itself with greater distinctness, and will therefore be more easily explained. With this aim we shall next attempt to trace the source of _egoism_ as the starting-point of all conflict.

We have called time and s.p.a.ce the _principium individuationis_, because only through them and in them is multiplicity of the h.o.m.ogeneous possible.

They are the essential forms of natural knowledge, _i.e._, knowledge springing from the will. Therefore the will everywhere manifests itself in the multiplicity of individuals. But this multiplicity does not concern the will as thing-in-itself, but only its phenomena. The will itself is present, whole and undivided, in every one of these, and beholds around it the innumerably repeated image of its own nature; but this nature itself, the actually real, it finds directly only in its inner self. Therefore every one desires everything for himself, desires to possess, or at least to control, everything, and whatever opposes it it would like to destroy.

To this is added, in the case of such beings as have knowledge, that the individual is the supporter of the knowing subject, and the knowing subject is the supporter of the world, _i.e._, that the whole of Nature outside the knowing subject, and thus also all other individuals, exist only in its idea; it is only conscious of them as its idea, thus merely indirectly as something which is dependent on its own nature and existence; for with its consciousness the world necessarily disappears for it, _i.e._, its being and non-being become synonymous and indistinguishable. Every knowing individual is thus in truth, and finds itself as the whole will to live, or the inner being of the world itself, and also as the complemental condition of the world as idea, consequently as a microcosm which is of equal value with the macrocosm. Nature itself, which is everywhere and always truthful, gives him this knowledge, originally and independently of all reflection, with simple and direct certainty. Now from these two necessary properties we have given the fact may be explained that every individual, though vanis.h.i.+ng altogether and diminished to nothing in the boundless world, yet makes itself the centre of the world, has regard for its own existence and well-being before everything else; indeed, from the natural standpoint, is ready to sacrifice everything else for this-is ready to annihilate the world in order to maintain its own self, this drop in the ocean, a little longer.

This disposition is _egoism_, which is essential to everything in Nature.

Yet it is just through egoism that the inner conflict of the will with itself attains to such a terrible revelation; for this egoism has its continuance and being in that opposition of the microcosm and macrocosm, or in the fact that the objectification of will has the _principium individuationis_ for its form, through which the will manifests itself in the same way in innumerable individuals, and indeed entire and completely in both aspects (will and idea) in each. Thus, while each individual is given to itself directly as the whole will and the whole subject of ideas, other individuals are only given it as ideas. Therefore its own being, and the maintenance of it, is of more importance to it than that of all others together. Every one looks upon his own death as upon the end of the world, while he accepts the death of his acquaintances as a matter of comparative indifference, if he is not in some way affected by it. In the consciousness that has reached the highest grade, that of man, egoism, as well as knowledge, pain and pleasure, must have reached its highest grade also, and the conflict of individuals which is conditioned by it must appear in its most terrible form. And indeed we see this everywhere before our eyes, in small things as in great. Now we see its terrible side in the lives of great tyrants and miscreants, and in world-desolating wars; now its absurd side, in which it is the theme of comedy, and very specially appears as self-conceit and vanity. Rochefoucault understood this better than any one else, and presented it in the abstract. We see it both in the history of the world and in our own experience. But it appears most distinctly of all when any mob of men is set free from all law and order; then there shows itself at once in the distinctest form the _bellum omnium contra omnes_, which Hobbes has so admirably described in the first chapter _De Cive_. We see not only how every one tries to seize from the other what he wants himself, but how often one will destroy the whole happiness or life of another for the sake of an insignificant addition to his own happiness. This is the highest expression of egoism, the manifestations of which in this regard are only surpa.s.sed by those of actual wickedness, which seeks, quite disinterestedly, the hurt and suffering of others, without any advantage to itself. Of this we shall speak soon. With this exhibition of the source of egoism the reader should compare the presentation of it in my prize-essay on the basis of morals, -- 14.

A chief source of that suffering which we found above to be essential and inevitable to all life is, when it really appears in a definite form, that _Eris_, the conflict of all individuals, the expression of the contradiction, with which the will to live is affected in its inner self, and which attains a visible form through the _principium individuationis_.

Wild-beast fights are the most cruel means of showing this directly and vividly. In this original discord lies an unquenchable source of suffering, in spite of the precautions that have been taken against it, and which we shall now consider more closely.

-- 62. It has already been explained that the first and simplest a.s.sertion of the will to live is only the a.s.sertion of one's own body, _i.e._, the exhibition of the will through acts in time, so far as the body, in its form and design, exhibits the same will in s.p.a.ce, and no further. This a.s.sertion shows itself as maintenance of the body, by means of the application of its own powers. To it is directly related the satisfaction of the s.e.xual impulse; indeed this belongs to it, because the genitals belong to the body. Therefore _voluntary_ renunciation of the satisfaction of that impulse, based upon no _motive_, is already a denial of the will to live, is a voluntary self-suppression of it, upon the entrance of knowledge which acts as a _quieter_. Accordingly such denial of one's own body exhibits itself as a contradiction by the will of its own phenomenon.

For although here also the body objectifies in the genitals the will to perpetuate the species, yet this is not willed. Just on this account, because it is a denial or suppression of the will to live, such a renunciation is a hard and painful self-conquest; but of this later. But since the will exhibits that _self-a.s.sertion_ of one's own body in innumerable individuals beside each other, it very easily extends in one individual, on account of the egoism peculiar to them all, beyond this a.s.sertion to the _denial_ of the same will appearing in another individual. The will of the first breaks through the limits of the a.s.sertion of will of another, because the individual either destroys or injures this other body itself, or else because it compels the powers of the other body to serve _its own_ will, instead of the will which manifests itself in that other body. Thus if, from the will manifesting itself as another body, it withdraws the powers of this body, and so increases the power serving its own will beyond that of its own body, it consequently a.s.serts its own will beyond its own body by means of the negation of the will appearing in another body. This breaking through the limits of the a.s.sertion of will of another has always been distinctly recognised, and its concept denoted by the word _wrong_. For both sides recognise the fact instantly, not, indeed, as we do here in distinct abstraction, but as feeling. He who suffers wrong feels the transgression into the sphere of the a.s.sertion of his own body, through the denial of it by another individual, as a direct and mental pain which is entirely separated and different from the accompanying physical suffering experienced from the act or the vexation at the loss. To the doer of wrong, on the other hand, the knowledge presents itself that he is in himself the same will which appears in that body also, and which a.s.serts itself with such vehemence; the one phenomenon that, transgressing the limits of its own body and its powers, it extends to the denial of this very will in another phenomenon, and so, regarded as will in itself, it strives against itself by this vehemence and rends itself. Moreover, this knowledge presents itself to him instantly, not _in abstracto_, but as an obscure feeling; and this is called remorse, or, more accurately in this case, the feeling of _wrong committed_.

_Wrong_, the conception of which we have thus a.n.a.lysed in its most general and abstract form, expresses itself in the concrete most completely, peculiarly, and palpably in cannibalism. This is its most distinct and evident type, the terrible picture of the greatest conflict of the will with itself at the highest grade of its objectification, which is man.

Next to this, it expresses itself most distinctly in murder; and therefore the committal of murder is followed instantly and with fearful distinctness by remorse, the abstract and dry significance of which we have just given, which inflicts a wound on our peace of mind that a lifetime cannot heal. For our horror at the murder committed, as also our shrinking from the committal of it, corresponds to that infinite clinging to life with which everything living, as phenomenon of the will to live, is penetrated. (We shall a.n.a.lyse this feeling which accompanies the doing of wrong and evil, in other words, the pangs of conscience, more fully later on, and raise its concept to distinctness.) Mutilation, or mere injury of another body, indeed every blow, is to be regarded as in its nature the same as murder, and differing from it only in degree. Further, wrong shows itself in the subjugation of another individual, in forcing him into slavery, and, finally, in the seizure of another's goods, which, so far as these goods are regarded as the fruit of his labour, is just the same thing as making him a slave, and is related to this as mere injury is to murder.

For _property_, which is not taken from a man without _wrong_, can, according to our explanation of wrong, only be that which has been produced by his own powers. Therefore by taking this we really take the powers of his body from the will objectified in it, to make them subject to the will objectified in another body. For only so does the wrong-doer, by seizing, not the body of another, but a lifeless thing quite different from it, break into the sphere of the a.s.sertion of will of another person, because the powers, the work of this other body, are, as it were, incorporated and identified with this thing. It follows from this that all true, _i.e._, moral, right of property is based simply and solely on work, as was pretty generally a.s.sumed before Kant, and is distinctly and beautifully expressed in the oldest of all codes of law: "Wise men who know the past explain that a cultured field is the property of him who cut down the wood and cleared and ploughed it, as an antelope belongs to the first hunter who mortally wounds it" (Laws of Manu, ix. 44). Kant's philosophy of law is an extraordinary concatenation of errors all leading to each other, and he bases the right of property upon first occupation.

To me this is only explicable on the supposition that his powers were failing through old age. For how should the mere avowal of my will to exclude others from the use of a thing at once give me a _right_ to it?

Clearly such an avowal itself requires a foundation of right, instead of being one, as Kant a.s.sumes. And how would he act unjustly _in se_, _i.e._, morally, who does not respect that claim to the sole possession of a thing which is based upon nothing but its own avowal? How should his conscience trouble him about it? For it is so clear and easy to understand that there can be absolutely no such thing as a just seizure of anything, but only a just conversion or acquired possession of it, by spending our own original powers upon it. When, by any foreign labour, however little, a thing has been cultivated, improved, kept from harm or preserved, even if this labour were only the plucking or picking up from the ground of fruit that has grown wild; the person who forcibly seizes such a thing clearly deprives the other of the result of his labour expended upon it, makes the body of this other serve his will instead of its own, a.s.serts his will beyond its own phenomenon to the denial of that of the other, _i.e._, does injustice or wrong.(74) On the other hand, the mere enjoyment of a thing, without any cultivation or preservation of it from destruction, gives just as little right to it as the mere avowal of our desire for its sole possession. Therefore, though one family has hunted a district alone, even for a hundred years, but has done nothing for its improvement; if a stranger comes and desires to hunt there, it cannot prevent him from doing so without moral injustice. Thus the so-called right of preoccupation, according to which, for the mere past enjoyment of a thing, there is demanded the further recompense of the exclusive right to its future enjoyment, is morally entirely without foundation. A new-comer might with far better right reply to him who was depending upon such a right, "Just because you have so long enjoyed, it is right that others should now enjoy also." No moral right can be established to the sole possession of anything upon which labour cannot be expended, either in improving it or in preserving it from harm, unless it be through a voluntary surrender on the part of others, as a reward for other services. This, however, already presupposes a community regulated by agreement-the State. The morally established right of property, as we have deduced it above, gives, from its nature, to the owner of a thing, the same unlimited power over it which he has over his own body; and hence it follows that he can part with his possessions to others either in exchange or as a gift, and they then possess them with the same moral right as he did.

As regards the doing of wrong generally, it occurs either through violence or through craft; it matters not which as far as what is morally essential is concerned. First, in the case of murder, it is a matter of indifference whether I make use of a dagger or of poison; and the case of every bodily injury is a.n.a.logous. Other cases of wrong can all be reduced to the fact that I, as the doer of wrong, compel another individual to serve my will instead of his own, to act according to my will instead of according to his own. On the path of violence I attain this end through physical causality, but on the path of craft by means of motivation, _i.e._, by means of causality through knowledge; for I present to his will illusive motives, on account of which he follows my will, while he believes he is following his own. Since the medium in which the motives lie is knowledge, I can only accomplish this by falsifying his knowledge, and this is the _lie_. The lie always aims at influencing another's will, not merely his knowledge, for itself and as such, but only as a means, so far as it determines his will. For my lying itself, inasmuch as it proceeds from my will, requires a motive; and only the will of another can be such a motive, not his knowledge in and for itself; for as such it can never have an influence upon _my_ will, therefore it can never move it, can never be a motive of its aim. But only the willing and doing of another can be this, and his knowledge indirectly through it. This holds good not only of all lies that have manifestly sprung from self-interest, but also of those which proceed from pure wickedness, which seeks enjoyment in the painful consequences of the error into which it has led another. Indeed, mere empty boasting aims at influencing the will and action of others more or less, by increasing their respect or improving their opinion of the boaster. The mere refusal of a truth, _i.e._, of an a.s.sertion generally, is in itself no wrong, but every imposing of a lie is certainly a wrong.

He who refuses to show the strayed traveller the right road does him no wrong, but he who directs him to a false road certainly does. It follows from what has been said, that every _lie_, like every act of violence, is as such _wrong_, because as such it has for its aim the extension of the authority of my will to other individuals, and so the a.s.sertion of my will through the denial of theirs, just as much as violence has. But the most complete lie is the _broken contract_, because here all the conditions mentioned are completely and distinctly present together. For when I enter into a contract, the promised performance of the other individual is directly and confessedly the motive for my reciprocal performance. The promises were deliberately and formally exchanged. The fulfilment of the declarations made is, it is a.s.sumed, in the power of each. If the other breaks the covenant, he has deceived me, and by introducing merely illusory motives into my knowledge, he has bent my will according to his intention; he has extended the control of his will to another individual, and thus has committed a distinct wrong. On this is founded the moral lawfulness and validity of the _contract_.

Wrong through violence is not so _shameful_ to the doer of it as wrong through craft; for the former arises from physical power, which under all circ.u.mstances impresses mankind; while the latter, by the use of subterfuge, betrays weakness, and lowers man at once as a physical and moral being. This is further the case because lying and deception can only succeed if he who employs them expresses at the same time horror and contempt of them in order to win confidence, and his victory rests on the fact that men credit him with honesty which he does not possess. The deep horror which is always excited by cunning, faithlessness, and treachery rests on the fact that good faith and honesty are the bond which externally binds into a unity the will which has been broken up into the multiplicity of individuals, and thereby limits the consequences of the egoism which results from that dispersion. Faithlessness and treachery break this outward bond asunder, and thus give boundless scope to the consequences of egoism.

In the connection of our system we have found that the content of the concept of _wrong_ is that quality of the conduct of an individual in which he extends the a.s.sertion of the will appearing in his own body so far that it becomes the denial of the will appearing in the bodies of others. We have also laid down, by means of very general examples, the limits at which the province of wrong begins; for we have at once defined its gradations, from the highest degree to the lowest, by means of a few leading conceptions. According to this, the concept of wrong is the original and positive, and the concept of right, which is opposed to it, is the derivative and negative; for we must keep to the concepts, and not to the words. As a matter of fact, there would be no talk of right if there were no such thing as wrong. The concept right contains merely the negation of wrong, and every action is subsumed under it which does not transgress the limit laid down above, _i.e._, is not a denial of the will of another for the stronger a.s.sertion of our own. That limit, therefore, divides, as regards a purely _moral_ definition, the whole province of possible actions into such as are wrong or right. Whenever an action does not encroach, in the way explained above, on the sphere of the a.s.sertion of will of another, denying it, it is not wrong. Therefore, for example, the refusal of help to another in great need, the quiet contemplation of the death of another from starvation while we ourselves have more than enough, is certainly cruel and fiendish, but it is not wrong; only it can be affirmed with certainty that whoever is capable of carrying unkindness and hardness to such a degree will certainly also commit every wrong whenever his wishes demand it and no compulsion prevents it.

But the conception of right as the negation of wrong finds its princ.i.p.al application, and no doubt its origin, in cases in which an attempted wrong by violence is warded off. This warding off cannot itself be wrong, and consequently is right, although the violence it requires, regarded in itself and in isolation, would be wrong, and is here only justified by the motive, _i.e._, becomes right. If an individual goes so far in the a.s.sertion of his own will that he encroaches upon the a.s.sertion of will which is essential to my person as such, and denies it, then my warding off of that encroachment is only the denial of that denial, and thus from my side is nothing more than the a.s.sertion of the will which essentially and originally appears in my body, and is already implicitly expressed by the mere appearance of this body; consequently is not wrong, but right.

That is to say: I have then a right to deny that denial of another with the force necessary to overcome it, and it is easy to see that this may extend to the killing of the other individual, whose encroachment as external violence pressing upon me may be warded off by a somewhat stronger counteraction, entirely without wrong, consequently with right.

For all that happens from my side lies always within the sphere of the a.s.sertion of will essential to my person as such, and already expressed by it (which is the scene of the conflict), and does not encroach on that of the other, consequently is only negation of the negation, and thus affirmation, not itself negation. Thus if the will of another denies my will, as this appears in my body and the use of its powers for its maintenance, without denial of any foreign will which observes a like limitation, I can _without wrong_ compel it to desist from such denial, _i.e._, I have so far a _right of compulsion_.

In all cases in which I have a right of compulsion, a complete right to use _violence_ against another, I may, according to the circ.u.mstances, just as well oppose the violence of the other with _craft_ without doing any wrong, and accordingly I have an actual _right to lie precisely so far as I have a right of compulsion_. Therefore a man acts with perfect right who a.s.sures a highway robber who is searching him that he has nothing more upon him; or, if a burglar has broken into his house by night, induces him by a lie to enter a cellar and then locks him in. A man who has been captured and carried off by robbers, for example by pirates, has the right to kill them not only by violence but also by craft, in order to regain his freedom. Thus, also, a promise is certainly not binding when it has been extorted by direct bodily violence, because he who suffers such compulsion may with full right free himself by killing, and, _a fortiori_, by deceiving his oppressor. Whoever cannot recover through force the property which has been stolen from him, commits no wrong if he can accomplish it through craft. Indeed, if some one plays with me for money he has stolen from me, I have the right to use false dice against him, because all that I win from him already belongs to me. Whoever would deny this must still more deny the justifiableness of stratagem in war, which is just an acted lie, and is a proof of the saying of Queen Christina of Sweden, "The words of men are to be esteemed as nothing; scarcely are their deeds to be trusted." So sharply does the limit of right border upon that of wrong. For the rest, I regard it as superfluous to show that all this completely agrees with what was said above about the unlawfulness of the lie and of violence. It may also serve to explain the peculiar theory of the lie told under pressure.(75)

In accordance with what has been said, wrong and right are merely moral determinations, _i.e._, such as are valid with regard to the consideration of human action as such, and in relation _to the inner significance of this action in itself_. This a.s.serts itself directly in consciousness through the fact that the doing of wrong is accompanied by an inward pain, which is the merely felt consciousness of the wrong-doer of the excessive strength of the a.s.sertion of will in itself, which extends even to the denial of the manifestation of the will of another, and also the consciousness that although he is different from the person suffering wrong as far as the manifestation is concerned, yet in himself he is identical with him. The further explanation of this inner significance of all pain of conscience cannot be given till later. He who suffers wrong is, on the other hand, painfully conscious of the denial of his will, as it is expressed through the body and its natural requirements, for the satisfaction of which nature refers him to the powers of his body; and at the same time he is conscious that without doing wrong he might ward off that denial by every means unless he lacks the power. This purely moral significance is the only one which right and wrong have for men as men, not as members of the State, and which consequently remains even when man is in a state of nature without any positive law. It const.i.tutes the basis and the content of all that has on this account been named _natural law_, though it is better called moral law, for its validity does not extend to suffering, to the external reality, but only to the action of man and the self-knowledge of his individual will which grows up in him from his action, and which is called _conscience_. It cannot, however, in a state of nature, a.s.sert itself in all cases, and outwardly upon other individuals, and prevent might from reigning instead of right. In a state of nature it depends upon every one merely to see that in every case he _does_ no wrong, but by no means to see that in every case he _suffers_ no wrong, for this depends on the accident of his outward power. Therefore the concepts right and wrong, even in a state of nature, are certainly valid and by no means conventional, but there they are valid merely as _moral_ concepts, for the self-knowledge of one's own will in each. They are a fixed point in the scale of the very different degrees of strength with which the will to live a.s.serts itself in human individuals, like the freezing-point on the thermometer; the point at which the a.s.sertion of one's own will becomes the denial of the will of another, _i.e._, specifies through wrong-doing the degree of its intensity, combined with the degree in which knowledge is involved in the _principium individuationis_ (which is the form of all knowledge that is subject to the will). But whoever wants to set aside the purely moral consideration of human action, or denies it, and wishes to regard conduct merely in its outward effects and their consequences, may certainly, with Hobbes, explain right and wrong as conventional definitions arbitrarily a.s.sumed, and therefore not existing outside positive law, and we can never show him through external experience what does not belong to such experience.

Hobbes himself characterises his completely empirical method of thought very remarkably by the fact that in his book "_De Principiis Geometrarum_"

he denies all pure mathematics properly so called, and obstinately maintains that the point has extension and the line has breadth, and we can never show him a point without extension or a line without breadth.

Thus we can just as little impart to him the _a priori_ nature of mathematics as the _a priori_ nature of right, because he shuts himself out from all knowledge which is not empirical.

The pure doctrine of right is thus a chapter of ethics, and is directly related only to _action_, not to _suffering_; for only the former is the expression of will, and this alone is considered by ethics. Suffering is mere occurrence. Ethics can only have regard to suffering indirectly, merely to show that what takes place merely to avoid suffering wrong is itself no infliction of wrong. The working out of this chapter of ethics would contain the precise definition of the limits to which an individual may go in the a.s.sertion of the will already objectified in his body without denying the same will as it appears in another individual; and also the actions which transgress these limits, which consequently are wrong, and therefore in their turn may be warded off without wrong. Thus our own _action_ always remains the point of view of the investigation.

But the _suffering of wrong_ appears as an event in outward experience, and in it is manifested, as we have said, more distinctly than anywhere else, the phenomenon of the conflict of the will to live with itself, arising from the multiplicity of individuals and from egoism, both of which are conditioned through the _principium individuationis_, which is the form of the world as idea for the knowledge of the individual. We also saw above that a very large part of the suffering essential to human life has its perennial source in that conflict of individuals.

The reason, however, which is common to all these individuals, and which enables them to know not merely the particular case, as the brutes do, but also the whole abstractly in its connection, has also taught them to discern the source of that suffering, and induced them to consider the means of diminis.h.i.+ng it, or, when possible, of suppressing it by a common sacrifice, which is, however, more than counterbalanced by the common advantage that proceeds from it. However agreeable it is to the egoism of the individual to inflict wrong in particular cases, this has yet a necessary correlative in the suffering of wrong of another individual, to whom it is a great pain. And because the reason which surveys the whole left the one-sided point of view of the individual to which it belongs, and freed itself for the moment from its dependence upon it, it saw the pleasure of an individual in inflicting wrong always outweighed by the relatively greater pain of the other who suffered the wrong; and it found further, that because here everything was left to chance, every one had to fear that the pleasure of conveniently inflicting wrong would far more rarely fall to his lot than the pain of enduring it. From this reason recognised that both in order to diminish the suffering which is everywhere disseminated, and as far as possible to divide it equally, the best and only means was to spare all the pain of suffering wrong by renouncing all the pleasure to be obtained by inflicting it. This means is the _contract of the state_ or _law_. It is easily conceived, and little by little carried out by the egoism, which, through the use of reason, proceeds methodically and forsakes its one-sided point of view. This origin of the state and of law I have indicated was already exhibited as such by Plato in the "Republic." In fact, it is the essential and only origin, determined by the nature of the matter. Moreover, in no land can the state have ever had a different origin, because it is just this mode of originating this aim that makes it a state. But it is a matter of indifference whether, in each particular nation, the condition which preceded it was that of a horde of savages independent of each other (anarchy), or that of a horde of slaves ruled at will by the stronger (despotism). In both cases there existed as yet no state; it first arose through that common agreement; and according as that agreement is more or less free from anarchy or despotism, the state is more or less perfect.

Republics tend to anarchy, monarchies to despotism, and the mean of const.i.tutional monarchy, which was therefore devised, tends to government by factions. In order to found a perfect state, we must begin by providing beings whose nature allows them always to sacrifice their own to the public good. Till then, however, something may be attained through the existence of _one_ family whose good is quite inseparable from that of the country; so that, at least in matters of importance, it can never advance the one without the other. On this rests the power and the advantage of the hereditary monarchy.

Now as ethics was concerned exclusively with right and wrong doing, and could accurately point out the limits of his action to whoever was resolved to do no wrong; politics, on the contrary, the theory of legislation, is exclusively concerned with the _suffering_ of wrong, and would never trouble itself with wrong-doing at all if it were not on account of its ever-necessary correlative, the suffering of wrong, which it always keeps in view as the enemy it opposes. Indeed, if it were possible to conceive an infliction of wrong with which no suffering of wrong on the part of another was connected, the state would, consistently, by no means prohibit it. And because in ethics the will, the disposition, is the object of consideration, and the only real thing, the firm will to do wrong, which is only restrained and rendered ineffective by external might, and the actually committed wrong, are to it quite the same, and it condemns him who so wills as unjust at its tribunal. On the other hand, will and disposition, merely as such, do not concern the state at all, but only the _deed_ (whether it is merely attempted or carried out), on account of its correlative, the _suffering_ on the part of another. Thus for the state the deed, the event, is the only real; the disposition, the intention, is only investigated so far as the significance of the deed becomes known through it. Therefore the state will forbid no one to carry about in his thought murder and poison against another, so long as it knows certainly that the fear of the sword and the wheel will always restrain the effects of that will. The state has also by no means to eradicate the foolish purpose, the inclination to wrong-doing, the wicked disposition; but merely always to place beside every possible motive for doing a wrong a more powerful motive for leaving it undone in the inevitable punishment that will ensue. Therefore the criminal code is as complete a register as possible of motives against every criminal action that can possibly be imagined-both _in abstracto_, in order to make any case that occurs an application _in concreto_. Politics or legislation will therefore for this end borrow from that chapter of ethics which is the doctrine of right, and which, besides the inner significance of right and wrong, determines the exact limits between them. Yet it will only do so for the purpose of making use of its reverse side, and regarding all the limits which ethics lays down as not to be transgressed, if we are to avoid _doing_ wrong, from the other side, as the limits which we must not allow others to transgress if we do not wish to _suffer_ wrong, and from which we have therefore a _right_ to drive others back. Therefore these limits are, as much as possible, from the pa.s.sive side, barricaded by laws. It is evident that as an historian has very wittily been called an inverted prophet, the professor of law is an inverted moralist, and therefore law itself, in its proper sense, _i.e._, the doctrine of the _right_, which we ought to maintain, is inverted ethics in that chapter of it in which the rights are laid down which we ought not to violate. The concept of wrong and its negation, that of right, which is originally _ethical_, becomes _juridical_ by the transference of the starting-point from the active to the pa.s.sive side, and thus by inversion. This, as well as Kant's theory of law, which very falsely deduces the inst.i.tution of the state as a moral duty from his categorical imperative, has, even in the most recent times, repeatedly occasioned the very extraordinary error that the state is an inst.i.tution for furthering morality; that it arises from the endeavour after this, and is, consequently, directed against egoism.

As if the inward disposition, to which alone morality or immorality belongs, the externally free will, would allow itself to be modified from without and changed by influences exerted upon it! Still more perverse is the theory that the state is the condition of freedom in the moral sense, and in this way the condition of morality; for freedom lies beyond the phenomenon, and indeed beyond human arrangements. The state is, as we have said, so little directed against egoism in general and as such, that, on the contrary, it has sprung from egoism and exists only in its service-an egoism that well understands itself, proceeds methodically and forsakes the one-sided for the universal point of view, and so by addition is the common egoism of all. The state is thus inst.i.tuted under the correct presupposition that pure morality, _i.e._, right action from moral grounds, is not to be expected; if this were not the case, it would itself be superfluous. Thus the state, which aims at well-being, is by no means directed against egoism, but only against the disadvantageous consequences which arise from the multiplicity of egoistic individuals, and reciprocally affect them all and disturb their well-being. Therefore it was already said by Aristotle (De. Rep. iii.): ?e??? e? ??? p??e?? t? e?

???; t??t? de est?? t? ??? e?da????? ?a? ?a??? (_Finis civitatis est bene vivere, hoc autem est beate et pulchre vivere_). Hobbes also has accurately and excellently expounded this origin and end of the state; and that old first principle of all state policy, _salus publica prima lex esto_, indicates the same thing. If the state completely attains its end, it will produce the same outward result as if perfect justice of disposition prevailed everywhere. But the inner nature and origin of both phenomena will be the converse. Thus in the second case it would be that no one wished to _do_ wrong, and in the first that no one wished to _suffer_ wrong, and the means appropriate to this end had been fully employed. Thus the same line may be drawn from opposite directions, and a beast of prey with a muzzle is as harmless as a graminivorous animal. But beyond this point the state cannot go. It cannot exhibit a phenomenon such as would spring from universal mutual well-wis.h.i.+ng and love. For just as we found that from its nature it would not forbid the doing of a wrong which involved no corresponding suffering of wrong on the part of another, and prohibits all wrong-doing only because this is impossible; so conversely, in accordance with its tendency towards the well-being of all, it would very gladly take care that every benevolent action and work of human love should be _experienced_, if it were not that these also have an inevitable correlative in the _performance_ of acts of benevolence and works of love, and every member of the state would wish to a.s.sume the pa.s.sive and none the active role, and there would be no reason for exacting the latter from one member of the state rather than from another.

Accordingly only the negative, which is just the _right_, not the positive, which has been comprehended under the name of obligations of love, or, less completely, duties, _can be exacted by force_.

Legislation, as we have said, borrows the pure philosophy of right, or the doctrine of the nature and limits of right and wrong, from ethics, in order to apply it from the reverse side to its own ends, which are different from those of ethics, and to inst.i.tute positive legislation and the means of supporting it, _i.e._, the state, in accordance with it.

Positive legislation is thus the inverted application of the purely moral doctrine of right. This application may be made with reference to the peculiar relations and circ.u.mstances of a particular people. But only if the positive legislation is, in essential matters, throughout determined in accordance with the guidance of the pure theory of right, and for each of its propositions a ground can be established in the pure theory of right, is the legislation which has arisen a _positive right_ and the state a community _based upon right_, a _state_ in the proper meaning of the word, a morally permissible, not immoral inst.i.tution. Otherwise the positive legislation is, on the contrary, the establishment of a _positive wrong_; it is itself an openly avowed enforced wrong. Such is every despotism, the const.i.tution of most Mohammedan kingdoms; and indeed various parts of many const.i.tutions are also of this kind; for example, serfdom, va.s.salage, and many such inst.i.tutions. The pure theory of right or natural right-better, moral right-though always reversed, lies at the foundation of every just positive legislation, as pure mathematics lies at the foundation of every branch of applied mathematics. The most important points of the doctrine of right, as philosophy has to supply it for that end to legislation, are the following: 1. The explanation of the inner and real significance both of the origin of the conceptions of wrong and right, and of their application and position in ethics. 2. The deduction of the law of property. 3. The deduction of the moral validity of contracts; for this is the moral basis of the contract of the state. 4.

The explanation of the origin and the aim of the state, of the relation of this aim to ethics, and of the intentional transference of the ethical doctrine of right, by reversing it, to legislation, in consequence of this relation. 5. The deduction of the right of punishment. The remaining content of the doctrine of right is mere application of these principles, mere accurate definition of the limits of right and wrong for all possible relations of life, which are consequently united and distributed under certain points of view and t.i.tles. In these special doctrines the books which treat of pure law are fairly at one; it is only in the principles that they differ much, for these are always connected with some philosophical system. In connection with our system, we have explained the first four of these princ.i.p.al points shortly and generally, yet definitely and distinctly, and it remains for us to speak in the same way of the right of punishment.

Kant makes the fundamentally false a.s.sertion that apart from the state there would be no complete right of property. It follows from our deduction, as given above, that even in a state of nature there is property with complete natural, _i.e._, moral right, which cannot be injured without wrong, but may without wrong be defended to the uttermost.

On the other hand, it is certain that apart from the state there is no right of punishment. All right to punish is based upon the positive law alone, which _before_ the offence has determined a punishment for it, the threat of which, as a counter-motive, is intended to outweigh all possible motives for the offence. This positive law is to be regarded as sanctioned and recognised by all the members of the state. It is thus based upon a common contract which the members of the state are in duty bound to fulfil, and thus, on the one hand, to inflict the punishment, and, on the other hand, to endure it; thus the endurance of the punishment may with right be enforced. Consequently the immediate _end of punishment_ is, in the particular case, _the fulfilment of the law as a contract_. But the one end of the _law_ is _deterrence_ from the infringement of the rights of others. For, in order that every one may be protected from suffering wrong, men have combined to form a state, have renounced the doing of wrong, and a.s.sumed the task of maintaining the state. Thus the law and the fulfilment of it, the punishment, are essentially directed to the _future_, not to the _past_. This distinguishes _punishment_ from _revenge_; for the motives which instigate the latter are solely concerned with what has happened, and thus with the past as such. All requital of wrong by the infliction of pain, without any aim for the future, is revenge, and can have no other end than consolation for the suffering one has borne by the sight of the suffering one has inflicted upon another.

This is wickedness and cruelty, and cannot be morally justified. Wrong which some one has inflicted upon me by no means ent.i.tles me to inflict wrong upon him. The requital of evil with evil without further intention is neither morally nor otherwise through any rational ground to be justified, and the _jus talionis_ set up as the absolute, final principle of the right of punishment, is meaningless. Therefore Kant's theory of punishment as mere requital for requital's sake is a completely groundless and perverse view. Yet it is always appearing in the writings of many jurists, under all kinds of lofty phrases, which amount to nothing but empty words, as: Through the punishment the crime is expiated or neutralised and abolished, and many such. But no man has the right to set himself up as a purely moral judge and requiter, and punish the misdeeds of another with pains which he inflicts upon him, and so to impose penance upon him for his sins. Nay, this would rather be the most presumptuous arrogance; and therefore the Bible says, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." But man has the right to care for the safety of society; and this can only be done by interdicting all actions which are denoted by the word "criminal," in order to prevent them by means of counter-motives, which are the threatened punishments. And this threat can only be made effective by carrying it out when a case occurs in spite of it.

Accordingly that the end of punishment, or more accurately of penal law, is the deterrence from crime, is a truth so generally recognised and indeed self-evident, that in England it is expressed in the very old form of indictment which is still served by the counsel for the Crown in criminal actions, for it concludes with the words, "If this be proved, you, the said N. N., ought to be punished with pains of law, to deter others from the like crimes in all time coming." If a prince desires to extend mercy to a criminal who has justly been condemned, his Ministers will represent to him that, if he does, this crime will soon be repeated.

An end for the future distinguishes punishment from revenge, and punishment only has this end when it is inflicted _in fulfilment of a law_. It thus announces itself as inevitable in every future case, and thus the law obtains the power to deter, in which its end really consists.

Now here a Kantian would inevitably reply that certainly according to this view the punished criminal would be used "merely as a means." This proposition, so unweariedly repeated by all the Kantians, "Man must always be treated as an end, never as a means," certainly sounds significant, and is therefore a very suitable proposition for those who like to have a formula which saves them all further thought; but looked at in the light, it is an exceedingly vague, indefinite a.s.sertion, which reaches its aim quite indirectly, requires to be explained, defined, and modified in every case of its application, and, if taken generally, is insufficient, meagre, and moreover problematical. The murderer who has been condemned to the punishment of death according to law must now, at any rate, and with complete right, be used as a mere means. For public security, the chief end of the state, is disturbed by him; indeed it is abolished if the law is not carried out. The murderer, his life, his person, must now be the means of fulfilling the law, and thereby of re-establis.h.i.+ng the public security. And he is made such a means with perfect right, in fulfilment of the contract of the state, which was entered into by him because he was a citizen, and in accordance with which, in order to enjoy security for his life, freedom, and property, he has pledged his life, his freedom, and his property for the security of all, which pledge has now been forfeited.

This theory of punishment which we have established, the theory which is directly supported by sound reason, is certainly in the main no new thought; but it is a thought which was almost supplanted by new errors, and therefore it was necessary to exhibit it as distinctly as possible.

The same thing is in its essence contained in what Puffendorf says on the subject, "_De Officio Hominis et Civis_" (Bk. ii. chap. 12). Hobbes also agrees with it, "Leviathan" (chaps. 15-28). In our own day Feurbach is well known to have maintained it. Indeed, it occurs even in the utterances of the ancient philosophers. Plato expresses it clearly in the "Protagoras" (p. 114, edit. Bip.), also in the "Gorgias" (p. 168), and lastly in the eleventh book of the "Laws" (p. 165). Seneca expresses Plato's opinion and the theory of all punishment in the short sentence, "_Nemo prudens punit, quia peccatum est; sed ne peccetur_" (De Ira, i.

16).

Thus we have come to recognise in the state the means by which egoism endowed with reason seeks to escape from its own evil consequences which turn against itself, and now each promotes the well-being of all because he sees that his own well-being is involved in it. If the state attained its end completely, then to a certain extent something approaching to an Utopia might finally, by the removal of all kinds of evil, be brought about. For by the human powers united in it, it is able to make the rest of nature more and more serviceable. But as yet the state has always remained very far from this goal. And even if it attained to it, innumerable evils essential to all life would still keep it in suffering; and finally, if they were all removed, ennui would at once occupy every place they left. And besides, the strife of individuals is never completely abolished by the state, for it vexes in trifles when it is prohibited in greater things. Finally, Eris, happily expelled from within, turns to what is without; as the conflict of individuals, she is banished by the inst.i.tution of the state; but she reappears from without as the war of nations, and now demands in bulk and at once, as an acc.u.mulated debt, the b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice which by wise precautions has been denied her in the particular. And even supposing that all this were finally overcome and removed, by wisdom founded on the experience of thousands of years, at the end the result would be the actual over-population of the whole planet, the terrible evil of which only a bold imagination can now realise.(76)

-- 63. We have recognised _temporal justice_, which has its seat in the state, as requiting and punis.h.i.+ng, and have seen that this only becomes justice through a reference to the _future_. For without this reference all punis.h.i.+ng and requiting would be an outrage without justification, and indeed merely the addition of another evil to that which has already occurred, without meaning or significance. But it is quite otherwise with _eternal justice_, which was referred to before, and which rules not the state but the world, is not dependent upon human inst.i.tutions, is not subject to chance and deception, is not uncertain, wavering, and erring, but infallible, fixed, and sure. The conception of requital implies that of time; therefore _eternal justice_ cannot be requital. Thus it cannot, like temporal justice, admit of respite and delay, and require time in order to triumph, equalising the evil deed by the evil consequences only by means of time. The punishment must here be so bound up with the offence that both are one.

???e?te p?d?? t? ad???at? e?? ?e???

?te???s?, ??pe?t? e? ???? de?t?? pt??a??

G?afe?? t??? a?ta, ???a d? e?s????ta ???

T??t??? d??a?e??? ??d? ? pa? ???a???, ???? ??af??t?? ta? ??t?? ?a?t?a?, ??a??ese?e?, ??d? e?e???? a? s??p??

?epe?? ??ast? ???a?; a??? ? ????

??ta??a p?? est?? e????, e? ???es?? ????.

Eurip. ap. Stob. Ecl., i. c. 4.

("Volare pennis scelera ad aetherias domus Putatis, illic in Jovis tabularia Scripto referri; tum Jovem lectis super Sententiam proferre?-sed mortalium Facinora cli, quantaquanta est, regia Nequit tenere: nec legendis Juppiter Et puniendis par est. Est tamen ultio, Et, si intuemur, illa nos habitat prope.")

Now that such an eternal justice really lies in the nature of the world will soon become completely evident to whoever has grasped the whole of the thought which we have hitherto been developing.

The world, in all the multiplicity of its parts and forms, is the manifestation, the objectivity, of the one will to live. Existence itself, and the kind of existence, both as a collective whole and in every part, proceeds from the will alone. The will is free, the will is almighty. The will appears in everything, just as it determines itself in itself and outside time. The world is only the mirror of this willing; and all finitude, all suffering, all miseries, which it contains, belong to the expression of that which the will wills, are as they are because the will so wills. Accordingly with perfect right every being supports existence in general, and also the existence of its species and its peculiar individuality, entirely as it is and in circ.u.mstances as they are, in a world such as it is, swayed by chance and error, transient, ephemeral, and constantly suffering; and in all that it experiences, or indeed can experience, it always gets its due. For the will belongs to it; and as the will is, so is the world. Only this world itself can bear the responsibility of its own existence and nature-no other; for by what means could another have a.s.sumed it? Do we desire to know what men, morally considered, are worth as a whole and in general, we have only to consider their fate as a whole and in general. This is want, wretchedness, affliction, misery, and death. Eternal justice reigns; if they were not, as a whole, worthless, their fate, as a whole, would not be so sad. In this sense we may say, the world itself is the judgment of the world. If we could lay all the misery of the world in one scale of the balance, and all the guilt of the world in the other, the needle would certainly point to the centre.

Certainly, however, the world does not exhibit itself to the knowledge of the individual as such, developed for the service of the will, as it finally reveals itself to the inquirer as the objectivity of the one and only will to live, which he himself is. But the sight of the uncultured individual is clouded, as the Hindus say, by the veil of Maya. He sees not the thing-in-itself but the phenomenon in time and s.p.a.ce, the _principium individuationis_, and in the other forms of the principle of sufficient reason. And in this form of his limited knowledge he sees not the inner nature of things, which is one, but its phenomena as separated, disunited, innumerable, very different, and indeed opposed. For to him pleasure appears as one thing and pain as quite another thing: one man as a tormentor and a murderer, another as a martyr and a victim; wickedness as one thing and evil as another. He sees one man live in joy, abundance, and pleasure, and even at his door another die miserably of want and cold.

Then he asks, Where is the retribution? And he himself, in the vehement, pressure of will which is his origin and his nature, seizes upon the pleasures and enjoyments of life, firmly embraces them, and knows not that by this very act of his will he seizes and hugs all those pains and sorrows at the sight of which he shudders. He sees the ills and he sees the wickedness in the world, but far from knowing that both of these are but different sides of the manifestation of the one will to live, he regards them as very different, and indeed quite opposed, and often seeks to escape by wickedness, _i.e._, by causing the suffering of another, from ills, from the suffering of his own individuality, for he is involved in the _principium individuationis_, deluded by the veil of Maya. Just as a sailor sits in a boat trusting to his frail barque in a stormy sea, unbounded in every direction, rising and falling with the howling mountainous waves; so in the midst of a world of sorrows the individual man sits quietly, supported by and trusting to the _principium individuationis_, or the way in which the individual knows things as phenomena. The boundless world, everywhere full of suffering in the infinite past, in the infinite future, is strange to him, indeed is to him but a fable; his ephemeral person, his extensionless present, his momentary satisfaction, this alone has reality for him; and he does all to maintain this, so long as his eyes are not opened by a better knowledge.

Till then, there lives only in the inmost depths of his consciousness a very obscure presentiment that all that is after all not really so strange to him, but has a connection with him, from which the _principium individuationis_ cannot protect him. From this presentiment arises that ineradicable _awe_ common to all men (and indeed perhaps even to the most sensible of the brutes) which suddenly seizes them if by any chance they become puzzled about the _principium individuationis_, because the principle of sufficient reason in some one of its forms seems to admit of an exception. For example, if it seems as if some change took place without a cause, or some one who is dead appears again, or if in any other way the past or the future becomes present or the distant becomes near.

The fearful terror at anything of the kind is founded on the fact that they suddenly become puzzled about the forms of knowledge of the phenomenon, which alone separate their own individuality from the rest of the world. But even this separation lies only in the phenomenon, and not in the thing-in-itself; and on this rests eternal justice. In fact, all temporal happiness stands, and all prudence proceeds, upon ground that is undermined. They defend the person from accidents and supply its pleasures; but the person is merely phenomenon, and its difference from other individuals, and exemption from the sufferings which they endure, rests merely in the form of the phenomenon, the _principium individuationis_. According to the true nature of things, every one has all the suffering of the world as his own, and indeed has to regard all merely possible suffering as for him actual, so long as he is the fixed will to live, _i.e._, a.s.serts life with all his power. For the knowledge that sees through the _principium individuationis_, a happy life in time, the gift of chance or won by prudence, amid the sorrows of innumerable others, is only the dream of a beggar in which he is a king, but from which he must awake and learn from experience that only a fleeting illusion had separated him from the suffering of his life.

Eternal justice withdraws itself from the vision that is involved in the knowledge which follows the principle of sufficient reason in the _principium individuationis_; such vision misses it altogether unless it vindicates it in some way by fictions. It sees the bad, after misdeeds and cruelties of every kind, live in happiness and leave the world unpunished.

It sees the oppressed drag out a life full of suffering to the end without an avenger, a requiter appearing. But that man only will grasp and comprehend eternal justice who raises himself above the knowledge that proceeds under the guidance of the principle of sufficient reason, bound to the particular thing, and recognises the Ideas, sees through the _principium individuationis_, and becomes conscious that the forms of the phenomenon do not apply to the thing-in-itself. Moreover, he alone, by virtue of the same knowledge, can understand the true nature of virtue, as it will soon disclose itself to us in connection with the present inquiry, although for the practice of virtue this knowledge in the abstract is by no means demanded. Thus it becomes clear to whoever has attained to the knowledge referred to, that because the will is the in-itself of all phenomena, the misery which is awarded to others and that which he experiences himself, the bad and the evil, always concerns only that one inner being which is everywhere the same, although the phenomena in which the one and the other exhibits itself exist as quite different individuals, and are widely separated by time and s.p.a.ce. He sees that the difference between him who inflicts the suffering and him who must bear it is only the phenomenon, and does not concern the thing-in-itself, for this is the will living in both, which here, deceived by the knowledge which is bound to its service, does not recognise itself, and seeking an increased happiness in _one_ of its phenomena, produces great suffering in _another_, and thus, in the pressure of excitement, buries its teeth in its own flesh, not knowing that it always injures only itself, revealing in this form, through the medium of individuality, the conflict with itself which it bears in its inner nature. The inflicter of suffering and the sufferer are one. The former errs in that he believes he is not a partaker in the suffering; the latter, in that he believes he is not a partaker in the guilt. If the eyes of both were opened, the inflicter of suffering would see that he lives in all that suffers pain in the wide world, and which, if endowed with reason, in vain asks why it was called into existence for such great suffering, its desert of which it does not understand. And the sufferer would see that all the wickedness which is or ever was committed in the world proceeds from that will which const.i.tutes _his_ own nature also, appears also in _him_, and that through this phenomenon and its a.s.sertion he has taken upon himself all the sufferings which proceed from such a will and bears them as his due, so long as he is this will. From this knowledge speaks the profound poet Calderon in "Life a Dream"-

"Pues el delito mayor Del hombre es haber nacido."

("For the greatest crime of man Is that he ever was born.")